


A Hero - Gellert Grindelwald

by Messy_haired_bum



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 06:38:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9223412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Messy_haired_bum/pseuds/Messy_haired_bum
Summary: Gellert Grindelwald did not start out a villain.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aethelar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aethelar/gifts).



Gellert Grindelwald did not start out a villain.    
  
Before one began, one must knew this. Gellert Grindelwald did not start out a villain. He did not thrive on people's misery, he did not wish for the world's destruction; he was not evil. He was a boy, young and passionate and clever beyond his years, who had only wanted to do good, to be good. Gellert Grindelwald wanted to be a hero. And that, perhaps, was the greatest tragedy of all.    
  
He was, once, a boy who saw the world as kind, who saw people smiling and laughing and thought that this was it, that this was what he wanted to protect, to love, to let prosper. And he joined them, sometimes, smiling and laughing too, and life, then, was good.   
  
He went to Durmstrang, a school famous for its teaching of the Dark Arts. Sometimes, the boy that he once was would wonder. Would it be different had he gone somewhere else instead? To Beauxbatons, maybe? Or to Hogwarts? Because Durmstrang, Durmstrang was good, but it was dark. It detested all things not magical; it bred the Dark. And Grindelwald, bright and eager and hopeful, was thrown to the mercy of an unforgiving environment, and his ideals, his inherent goodness, his everything became a little twisted, a little crooked, and a little tainted.    
  
Durmstrang taught him that Muggle-borns were inferior, that Muggles were spiteful and hateful and ugly as a whole, that witches and wizards, were once chained and tortured and ruined for having magic, that the Statute was implemented to protect them. He heard, and his heart burnt for the injustice of it all. Protect? Was it really? Living in hiding and shadows, lying and cautious and shackled by fear of exposure. How, how was that living? He thought about the smiles and the laughters and something precious inside him broke a little bit. He swore to protect them. Now, he would. It was time for revolution.   
  
Durmstrang taught him that the best way to change the world was to be powerful. Then it taught him about the Deathly Hallows, and he was. Enchanted. This was it, he whispered. This was it, and he smiled. He would change the world. And now, now he knew how. Gellert Grindelwald was the best and brightest Durmstrang had to offer, before he was expelled for going too far.   
  
Hurt and all the more determined, he traveled to Godric's Hollows, where he met an equally burden Albus Dumbledore. And he healed, a little bit, because Albus was brilliant and talented and so similar to him they felt like two pieces of a whole. Together, they were unstoppable, and his dreams, their dreams flourished. They were united, they were good and true and now, they had a Greater Good to work towards to and everything was right again.    
  
Then it went wrong. Grindelwald fled, hopes in tatters, dreams in ruins, betrayal and shame a hot brand around his heart, leaving behind Albus and the disaster their friendship had been reduced to. He ran, and didn't look back. Aberforth's cries pierced the air, Albus's tears spoke louder than any words could do, and Arianna's still body the proof of his crime but he didn't look back. (Just once,  maybe, but no one would ever know.)   
  
He was so sorry. So sorry.   
(It was not enough.)   
  
So he marched on, cold and lonely and still feeling like he was running. But he had learnt, and he closed his too-big heart, shuttered his emotions, and wore his will and ambition around him like an armor. The Revolution must went on, and so he went with it. (It was the only thing he had left.)   
  
And somewhere along the way, he got lost. (There was no one to bring him back.)   
  
In some way, he, still, was considered a hero. An unlikely one, certainly not a popular one to the masses, but a hero nonetheless. He who strived to bring about freedom, he who wished the best for his kind, he who was charismatic and compassionate and strong and true. What else could he be, if not a hero? (A villain.)   
  
Let's blurred the line a little bit, shall we? Gellert Grindelwald was a hero. A hero who had no one to trust, and stood lonely, stark against the fabric of night. A hero who fought for the oppressed, and gained the ire of governments. A hero, who sometimes opposed other good people, who tried to make them see sense because they still had so much potential, who hurt to see them waste away, who marched on because he still had a purpose, and sometimes, sacrifices must be made for the Greater Good. A hero, who the world had thrown away, who still swore to free it anyway.   
  
He was a hero, who, well, simply wished to be free. When did that become something to be scorned and feared, he would ask. And they, those who listened and saw, would mull his words over in their minds, and they would nod. It was, after all, the truth, and freedom was something worth fighting for. (The Greater Good.)   
  
Some, the more stubborn ones, the ones blinded to the reality that chained witches and wizards and all things magical alike to the shadows of the forgotten, would straighten, wands raised and eyes ablaze, and tell him to stop, here, now, that they would stop him, that he had sinned and for that, he must be put down.    
  
And he would laugh and laugh and laugh, because in this kingdom of blinds, he was king, and though they hated and misunderstood and opposed him, he would still free them all, because it was good and it was just and he was a good man. Gellert Grindelwald was a hero, let no one told you otherwise, he'd said.   
  
He was once a boy who wanted to be good, then he grew up and the world turned on him and he learned to be cold. He faced reality and came out winning; he fought for what was right, fought to expose what was wrong and rotten and hidden beneath the smiles. He was a hero, and he would be a hero like no other. He would be a God, a benevolent, a just one, and everyone would learn, when the dust settled and all was said and done, all that he had given for them, that he had only the best intentions for the wizardkind in his mind, that he was true and he was good.   
  
That, there would make a good story, wouldn't it? An unlikely hero who overcame everything life had thrown at him and came out a better man.   
  
And it was this potential that was the greatest tragedy in this story of fairytales. Because Greater Good was a slippery road, and Gellert Grindelwald was a hero who lived long enough to become a villain.    
  
Because history was the tales told by the winners, and he lost, lost everything, to an underestimated magizoologist and a captive director.   
  
Gellert Grindelwald was a hero, but he would forever be remembered as the greatest villain who had ever lived.


End file.
